SPACE January 2025 (No. 686)
I AM AN ARCHITECT
‘I am an Architect’ was planned to meet young architects who seek their own architecture in a variety of materials and methods. What do they like, explore, and worry about? SPACE is going to discover individual characteristics of them rather than group them into a single category. The relay interview continues when the architect who participated in the conversation calls another architect in the next turn.
interview Kim Jungseop, Kim Taeyoen co-principals, Retools Design Studio × Kim Bokyoung
Returning Home
Kim Bokyoung (Bokyoung): Your office is very cosy. I heard that you originally planned to set your office up in Busan instead of Daegu.
Kim Jungseop (Jungseop): I’m from Busan, and Taeyoen is from Daegu. Since I left Busan when I was 20, I’ve always wanted to go back someday, one reason being because people from Busan are very nostalgic. We both studied in Japan, and I was there for ten years. I was impressed by the unique aspects of each region. Then I saw an article in Korea on how the leading architect of a region was not from that particular region, but was a famous architect from Seoul. I thought to myself I would like to be a local architect when I go back to Korea. I ran my own office in Busan for about three years.
Bokyoung: Then you moved to Daegu to run Kitchentool, a select shop for kitchen utensils that Taeyoen runs with her family?
Jungseop: I still never thought about moving my office out of Busan, so for about a year I traveled back and forth beween Busan and Daegu. We moved to Daegu after we learned that we were expecting a baby.
Kim Taeyoen (Taeyoen): It was when Kitchentool was just getting established and Retools Design Office (hereinafter Retools) was doing its first project, Kitchentool renovation (2016). Although I had some experience in a Korean atelier before studying abroad, I had a six-year gap in my career during my studies. When I got the opportunity to work on the renovation project, I was so passionate. Around the same time, I was also expecting a child, so physical distance was an important factor. With all the moving parts in my life already running at full speed, we decided to relocate to Daegu to work more efficiently.
